Day 72: a nigella easter: part 1
Today marked a particularly lovely day: not only was it Easter Sunday (always a special day and meal in my family), it was also the first time I’ve eaten lamb in over three years. Growing up, and indeed in the first three decades of my existence, lamb was my favourite meat. Lamb chops, mash potato, peas (petit pois!), gravy and mint sauce (later, developing a fondness for mint jelly too) was the meal I would always be most excited for. Coming home from school at the weekends or for holidays whilst at university, lamb chops would be one of the first meals of the weekend my Mum would cook for me - Barnsley chops being a particular favourite. And when I was considerably younger and smaller, I would love to push out the marrow - with my little finger - from the bone in the chop, always disappointed if it had dried up, or fallen out, before it reached my plate. Equal disappointment, and frustration, came as I grew older and my fingers became too big to push the marrow out.
So why did I stop eating it? I won’t bore you with that here, but should you wish to ask – and I warn you it is a predictable story involving lambs hopping about in a field – then I would be more than happy to elaborate.
I’ve never stopped wanting it and considering eating responsibly sourced lamb is hardly a vice, like smoking (I’m an ex-smoker: I cast no judgement), I thought it was about to time get over my internal quarrels and finally reacquaint myself with it. And what better occasion to do that than on Easter: here with Nigella’s Herbed Leg of Lamb, or Herbert as it has now become known - thanks to my phone’s autocorrect believing it knows best.
Nigella’s Herbed Leg of Lamb
As with any meat, no matter how you like it cooked, I guess there are always a few nerves lurking about as a result of the fear of over-/under-cooking it. Personally, I like my red meat on the medium to medium-rare side and I find it very difficult to get it just right: it’s just a lack of experience, I know. This is why I am kicking myself slightly for how long I cooked this lamb – it’s definitely not as pink as I would have liked. I kick myself because when I took it out of the oven I decided to put it back in for another 15 minutes, before then proceeding to let it rest for a good hour before eating. And that’s a lot of extra cooking time. Still, you live: you learn. That being said, it was beautifully tender: its sweet meat richly flavoured, but not overthrown, by the herbily-fragrant verdant rub.
Flavour musings
The juices that came from the lamb were so rich, and beautifully so, that we drizzled only a small amount over the slices of meat as we served it. The rest I will be freezing for use at a later date. I don’t know if this is normal but I have a craving to toss it through some hot, steaming spaghetti with some toasted pine nuts for crunch.
As for the leftover lamb: I sit here hurrying to finish this entry, impatiently checking the location of the delivery driver - who I hope will very soon be delivering my new stick blender (the previous snapped in half, mid-use??) so that I can whizz up a small batch of Nigella’s Anchovy Elixir to drizzle over the cold cuts. An idea actually recommended to me by Nigella on Twitter. I’ll post pictures of this masterpiece on my Twitter and Instagram if my blender arrives in time, if not, then it’s back to the drawing board because the lamb needs using up today (or freezing).
Part one and two of this year’s Nigella Easter for 365 Days of Nigella will only consist of one recipe each: unlike at Christmas, when small gatherings were temporarily allowed and I could justify cooking more, we are still in lockdown and there are only so many leftovers two can use. But, nevertheless, I wanted to stick to the naming style of my Christmas Part One and Part Two entries.
